Avalanches aren’t the only things cascading in large numbers in
Colorado this year. Pinnacol Assurance, the state’s largest provider of
workers compensation insurance, is reporting a big jump in slip-and-fall
claims.

In the first two months of 2019, those kind of claims, related mostly
to snow and ice, are up 46.3 percent compared to the same two months in
2018. And that’s not counting March and April, two of the snowier
months on the calendar.

“We went from a little over 770 claims last year to over 1,100 claims
this year,” said Jim McMillen, director of safety services at Pinnacol.

The increased claims aren’t coming out of the resort towns buried under feet of snow this year or from outdoor workers exposed to the elements for hours on end.